Children are a gift from God: an incident from Luther’s table

Would that more people took this view! Then perhaps they’d raise their own children and love them, and the world would be a better place.

No. 3613: Acknowledging God’s Gifts in the Cherry Season

Between June 18 and July 28, 1537

Dr. Justus Jonas praised the glorious blessing which God grants in fruit. “I have a branch with cherries on it hanging over my table,” he said, “in order that when I look at it I may learn the article about divine creation.” Dr. Martin Luther responded, “Why don’t you learn it daily by looking at your children, the fruit of your body? They’re there every day, and surely they amount to much more than all the fruit of the trees! There you may see the providence of God, who created them from nothing. In half a year he gave them body, life, and limb, and he will also sustain them. Yet we overlook them, as if those gifts of God made us blind and greedy, as it usually happens that men become worse and more greedy when they have offspring; they don’t realize that every child is apportioned his lot according to the saying, ‘The more children the more luck.’ Dear God, how great are the ignorance and the wickedness of man, who doesn’t think about the best gifts of God but does just the opposite.”

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I Cor 1:23-24 But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

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Ps 19:4 Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.